Category Archives: Cyber/Tech

By Dani Pidgeon, COO Mannix Marketing

AI search tools are no longer futuristic concepts; they are daily realities for a majority of consumers. A recent survey by Higher Visibility confirmed that 71.5% of Americans have used AI search tools, with 14% using them every day.

Though nearly 80% of users still prefer classic search engines like Google for general queries, the younger, high-spending demographic (like Gen Z, with 82% adoption) is leading the charge. AI is becoming a dominant channel for specific, local answers, and if your business isn’t prepared to provide the data AI needs, your business is missing out on a huge opportunity. 

How Does AI Search Work?

So how does AI pull or rank  information? Think of traditional search (Google) like a librarian giving you a list of books (links) to check out. Useful, but as an end user, you have to do a lot of leg work to get the information you need. AI Search goes a step further and acts as a very smart, research assistant who reads all those books and gives you one synthesized answer. In a culture that prefers instant gratification, it is easy to see why AI Search has been so quickly adopted. 

Let’s dive a little deeper now into how AI search rankings work. AI search scans billions of documents—your Google Business Profile, your website content, other website’s content about you, your reviews, and directory listings, social media mentions—to construct a single, highly confident answer. It understands entities (your address, your service) and facts (your hours, your prices). If your data is inconsistent or weak, the AI skips over you and recommends the next authoritative business.

By Aleks Pavlinik, Chief Information Security Officer 

Why protect your personal digital life? Securing your personal life identity, passwords, and digital assets is crucial not only for your own safety but also for the security of your workplace. Think about it… we all access our work emails through our personal smartphones everyday. We reply to emails, we open attachments, we check our calendars for meetings. Some companies even allow their staff to use their own computers for work. But if compromised, these personal devices are a gateway for cybercriminals to infiltrate your workplace systems. 

Maintaining strong, unique passwords, requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all accounts, and using strong security solutions for your personal devices helps you contribute to a more secure and resilient organizational infrastructure. Remember, your personal security practices are the first line of defense in protecting both your personal and professional life.

Everyone reading this has probably experienced a risk or an attempt of identity theft, financial loss, and unauthorized access to your accounts. Someone tried to login to your social media accounts, or your bank called you with a questionable fraud attempt. This is tenfold for a business. There’s a whole business market out there of hackers who make millions by exploiting businesses, holding their data at ransom and stopping them from working and serving their customers. 

Small businesses may think, “a hacker wouldn’t waste time going after my business. We aren’t big enough.” And that’s exactly the point. They know small businesses owners are not investing the resources in cybersecurity measures, so it’s easy for them. 

While personal devices allow employees to work with flexibility and efficiency, they also pose significant cybersecurity risks. Without a strong security culture, one compromised device can lead to devastating data breaches. The good news? A robust security culture can significantly reduce your business’s risk. Here’s how to make it happen.

By Paul Post

A local entrepreneur has developed a new mobile app that gives him remote, real-time views of his firm’s projects, to make sure they’re done properly.

 But Ryan Marcantonio believes NOLYM (No limit) can benefit all types of small and large businesses, while radically changing the way people obtain live media coverage.

The concept is similar to Uber, but instead of hiring a driver for a ride, NOLYM users contact anybody, anywhere who’s signed up for the program to provide a live view of a given scene or event.

“This is going to literally change the world of live streaming,” Marcantonio said. “There’s so many use cases. If I want to see Times Square right now, I could send out a job request saying I want to see a certain store there. I put information in a request, say how long I want the video to be and set my price.”

“If you’re a media outlet, there’s a protest going on and you want somebody on location right then, you literally have that with NOLYM,” he said. “It eliminates media bias. Instead of someone talking, putting their spin on what’s happening, the viewer at home can tell the streamer what they want to see, so they can truly see what’s happening without commentary. It changes the dynamic. It switches the power to the viewer instead of the streamer.”

By Reg Harnish

It’s that time of year when many of us start evaluating the past year and what goals we want to aspire to in the next. And although cybersecurity might not have as much allure as a six-pack (depending on who you ask), it’s crucial for your business’s well-being.

With an estimated $3.1B in losses and rising from cybercrime–whether from financial fraud, ransomware, or breach– it’s important to understand the sheer scope of the challenge. Although small businesses are increasingly adopting and investing in cybersecurity, 62% of small businesses are affected by cybercrime because the reality is that the bad guys are getting better faster than we are. 

Embarking on a cybersecurity strategy can seem daunting, but at the core, we believe that cybersecurity success comes from doing the absolute minimum necessary to achieve your business mission.  At a high level that means understanding how cybersecurity is affecting and contributing to your mission, and proactively and methodically thinking about how to apply controls (whether HIPAA, PCI, or other industry regulations) to:

Protect your intellectual property 

Combat cybercrime 

Minimize disruption and loss

Protect against reputational issues

To understand how cybersecurity can best contribute to your mission, follow these 8 recommendations:

By Christine Graf

After spending more than a decade at the helm of Jolt Consulting Group, Jeff Oskin sold the IT consultancy firm in February 2022. By that time, his company had grown exponentially and had a staff of 50 employees. 

“I grew that company both organically and through acquisitions,” he said. “We did IT consulting, specifically sales force implementation consulting work for service-oriented organizations.”

While operating Jolt, Oskin also began working as an executive coach, establishing a peer advisory group for executives in the Capital Region.

“Many of the most well-known executives in the Capital District are in that group,” said Oskin. 

After selling Jolt Consultancy, he established Newlogiq, a business that provides cutting-edge AI consulting solutions to small and mid-sized businesses. 

“I wanted to continue this entrepreneurial bent,” he said. “When I was contemplating my next move, I ultimately landed on going to market with a consulting company that sat at the intersection of three things: people, process, and technology.”

“From the people side, it’s helping organizations through executive coaching and leadership development—helping that next generation leader to develop skills to help them elevate their capabilities so as to improve the overall health of the company they work for.”

When referring to process, Oskin said he has long been a believer that technology should support business process.

“I believe AI—artificial intelligence—is a huge opportunity moving forward for organizations to leverage technology to simplify, automate, and streamline business processes.”

By Christine Graf 

World War II veteran Raymond Mahoney, Sr., was working as a Glens Falls City fireman when he founded Mahoney Alarms in the 1950s. On his days off, he operated the alarm business out of his basement. Nearly 70 years later, his son, Kevin Mahoney, serves as president of the company which is headquartered at 15 Cooper Street in Glens Falls.

Mahoney can’t say for sure exactly when he started working for his father at the family business. He remembers riding his bicycle to repair telephone pole alarm boxes when he was a teenager.

Mahoney Alarms is a true family business, and its staff of 49 employees includes Mahoney’s sister, Colleen McGuirk, his cousin, Benjamin Chapman, and his son, Kyle Mahoney.

“It’s a family business, and it’s treated as a family business,” said Mahoney. “We have very, very long-term employees, and they are as much of a family member as my own family.”

By Christine Graf

In 2021, an estimated 37 percent businesses were the target of ransomware—a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid. 

The price tag for these worldwide attacks was a staggering $20 billion. The dollar amount is expected to reach $265 billion by 2031, experts say.

In order to combat ransomware and other cybersecurity attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has partnered with members of the private sector. Through a program called InfraGard, they work together to protect the country’s critical infrastructure. 

Craig Stephenson, senior cybersecurity analyst at Tech II Business Services in Saratoga Springs, is a member of InfraGard. Tech II provides managed information technology services to small and medium sized businesses.

According to Stephenson, cyberattacks represent a clear and present danger to all companies regardless of size.

 “We are being inundated on a daily basis by bad actors from around the world. They are trying to steal the intellectual property from businesses or trying to get money from them. The FBI put together an unclassified video, and it’s an eye opener on how China is specifically and systematically trying to attack the United States in regards to stealing intellectual property.”

When it comes to ransomware, Stephenson said what he calls the “human firewall” is to blame for most attacks.